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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29480805">Alternative Unlocked</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/broken_risk_assessment_module/pseuds/broken_risk_assessment_module'>broken_risk_assessment_module</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Comparable Positions [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Heist-Adjacent, Origin Story, SecUnit OCs, Trust</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 22:47:47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>12,625</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29480805</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/broken_risk_assessment_module/pseuds/broken_risk_assessment_module</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A not-quite-a-SecUnit's data recovery mission goes spectacularly wrong in all the right ways. </p><p>  <i>Most SecUnits wear armour, because their job is to get shot. My job is to not be noticed; if I get shot, I've fucked up.</i></p><p>  <i>But you did get shot.</i></p><p>I turned and stared at it. "Yes," I said aloud, only a tad aggressively. "Because I fucked up."</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Comparable Positions [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2224377</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>74</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Rogues and Rampancy</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Alternative Unlocked</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When you're someone like me, a large group of unfamiliar humans with guns is just never what you want to see. </p><p>I was walking through the crowd towards the transport shuttle, which was dingy and fairly unassuming except for the twenty-six heavily armed humans who stood guard outside its main entrance. They were from a company called Haelical, which dealt in black market information and corporate secrets. Due to this, there was a 97% chance that they were here for the same reason I was. </p><p>Despite the small army, the ship did actually seem to be a regular transport shuttle. I slipped in under its (puny) walls and had a gander through its cameras: a bunch of humans looking restless, some worried - clearly they were aware of the situation outside, then. There was also a human-form bot, standing in a corner looking uncomfortable. No one looked obviously shifty, or like they were smuggling top-secret information, which meant I wasn't dealing with an amateur who panicked at the first sign of conflict. At least this would actually be half a challenge.</p><p>I pulled up the schematic of the port that I’d nicked when I first got here, and zoomed into my current area. The transport shuttle had a cargo hold that was only accessible through the floor below, which was mostly populated by hauler bots. That floor wasn’t for passengers, so the doors leading to them didn’t open for regular people. </p><p>Luckily, I wasn't a regular person.</p><p>I headed towards the staff door that would lead to the stairwell, holding onto a camera input outside and inside the shuttle. The door was supposed to be unlocked by a staff code, which I didn’t technically have, but that wasn’t too much of a problem. The first thing I had done when I was dropped on the station was analyse the feed signatures of the Station staff and security personnel. Once that was done I could throw together a nifty bit of pseudo-camouflage for my feed so that the Station systems would think that I worked here, but any human who looked at my feed would think I was some random passenger. It wouldn’t work under any heavy scrutiny, but the idea was to make myself seem normal enough that heavy scrutiny wasn’t necessary. And human security was lazy - they hadn’t even noticed that I was constantly erasing myself from the security feeds, but I didn’t blame them. They were only human, and I was pretty good at my job.</p><p>I approached the door and easily cracked through its wall, caught its alert and blocked it. I took some creative liberties with its memory so that it thought that it had received a valid security code from a staff member, then I deleted the whole ordeal once I was on the other side.</p><p>One of the armed humans was talking to the shuttle's pilot on the feed, telling her to remain calm and that a bunch of humans with very large guns were just going to come inside and look around for a bit. He didn't sound very comforting. </p><p>As I descended the stairs I found the cameras overlooking the cargo bay that connected to the shuttle. There were a few bots there, loading some boxes onto the ship. I considered shutting them all down, but that was kind of rude. Instead, they all received a ping from SecSystem to go into standby (this had absolutely nothing to do with me, of course). As I strode past them, I waved. </p><p>“Don’t mind me…” I muttered aloud as I weaved through the boxes. My governor module snapped at me for talking unnecessarily but I ignored it. Talking calmed me down and the zap it gave me wasn’t very painful.</p><p>I wandered through the hold and scanned through the various cargo laid out in stacked piles. Most cargo boxes had a log of their contents which the hauler bots could connect to so that they knew where to put the box. Because it was an automated feature specifically for bots, most people didn't even know it existed, therefore there was only a 0.74% of it being tampered with. Basically if you want to know what’s in a box, the best course of action is to just ask the box because it’s the most likely to be honest with you.</p><p>None of the boxes contained anything out of the ordinary, which - to be fair - I had expected. My objective was to secure a data packet, and those were very rarely held in the cargo hold, mostly because data was not a physical object you put in a box. But I had been given jack shit to work with for this assignment - my mission brief could be boiled down to “Very important information is on this transport shuttle somewhere,” which was not as specific as I would have liked.</p><p>But that did mean I would have to scour the feed and search each individual passenger’s profile, which was finicky and hard to do without a direct connection through the shuttle’s feed. That meant I’d need to find somewhere to jack into the shuttle’s computer, which I wanted to do anyway since there was an 18% chance that the data packet was stashed on the ship’s internal files somewhere (which would be a pain in the ass to get to through the feed). </p><p>I checked the shuttle's schematic; the only port was in the cockpit, which was annoying because obviously the pilot wouldn’t be thrilled to have some random construct waltz in like, “Hey sorry I just wanted to connect to your ship’s computer and browse the files in search of black market information real quick.” Unfortunately it seemed to be my only option, but I was saved from having to devise a way to get the pilot out by one of the Haelical agents calling on the feed;</p><p>“Everybody on board this shuttle must move to the passenger area immediately to be searched. There are no exceptions.”</p><p>The pilot ran her hands through her hair and strode quickly out of the cockpit. Thanks, heavily armed humans.</p><p>I found the door that led from the cargo area into one of the shuttle's tiny corridors, and ducked through it. Once I was out of their sight, I erased any memory of me from the hauler bots and released them from standby, but also put a block on their alerts (better safe than sorry). I slipped into the cockpit and shut the door, then found the port for the shuttle’s computer. I crouched down in front of it and pulled up my right sleeve, exposing a smooth panel of metal on the inside of my forearm. It snapped open silently, and inside were a range of different cable connectors. I pulled one out, the cable unravelling from inside my arm. (The space in my arm where these cables sit when they’re not extended is filled by an energy weapon on my left arm. In fact, it’s filled by an energy weapon on most SecUnits and CombatSecUnits. But I don’t need to shoot like they do, and they don’t need to hack like I do).</p><p>I plugged the cable into the port and felt a surge of information that made my skin prickle. I let myself sink into the data - the camera inputs, the diagnostics, the navigation, the files, all of it. The shuttle’s SecSystem tried to ping me and alert its pilot but I told it not to worry, that I was supposed to be here and that I wasn’t going to hurt it. In the passenger area, five of the armed humans were searching the passengers, scanning them, turning out their pockets, and digging through their bags. The human-form bot in the corner was still standing ramrod-straight, as if frozen. It had turned the lights on its face off too, maybe in an attempt to convince the intruders that it was on standby so they would leave it alone.</p><p>In the meantime I was performing my own search, both through the passenger’s feeds and the ship’s files. And let me tell you: I found fuck all. On the ship, it was all schedules, lists of cargo, passenger names, maps, feeds from the cameras - boring shit you’d expect from a transport shuttle. The pilot didn’t even have any media on here. I had started with the non-augmented humans, as their feeds weren’t connected to their heads so I could scan through them much more easily. None of them had anything besides the regular garbage that humans keep around for some reason, so I started poking my way through the augmented humans (there were three). </p><p>This was going to require a bit more concentration, because rummaging around in people’s actual heads without them noticing was not very easy, even if rummaging was your entire job. But as long as I just looked around and didn’t touch anything, everything should be fine. I was halfway through my search of the second augmented human when one of the Haelical agents got to the human-form bot in the corner.</p><p>“Whose bot is this?” he asked loudly, looking around the room. His feed ID suggested his name was Zedric.</p><p>“It came on by itself,” the pilot said. Zedric frowned.</p><p>“By itself? That’s against regulations.”</p><p>“It said that it got separated from its supervisors. They’re supposed to be waiting for it on this station,” the pilot supplied, and shrugged. “It had the credit to pay, so I let it on.” </p><p>Zedric turned back to the bot and frowned at it. Then he reached out and knocked on its face like a door. I wasn’t really in my body at this point, but I felt myself blink in surprise. That was just rude.</p><p>“Knock knock,” he said, leaning into the bot’s face. “Anyone home?”</p><p>From somewhere on its back, two elongated triangular drones rose up and hovered on either side of its head (they looked like short-range sensory drones, or maybe external storage. Either way, they stayed next to its head). It also had two large round lights where human eyes would be, and a series of smaller lights above the left one. They all blinked on one by one - overall, a very convincing act of powering up. But I could see by its internal activity that it had been on and paying very close attention the entire time.</p><p>“Can I help you?” it said calmly.</p><p>“Where are your supervising humans?” Zedric asked.</p><p>“My supervisors indicated that they would meet me in the lobby of Bluelight Hotel in Area 12 on this station,” the bot replied. </p><p>“And who might these supervisors be?”</p><p>There was a beat of silence. Maybe the humans didn’t notice it, but I sure did. Because unlike the humans, I was currently looking at the bot’s internal information: it wasn’t even registered to a company, and it definitely wasn’t registered to any humans. The bot rattled off the fake names that it had on its public feed profile, and Zedric called for someone to contact the hotel to confirm the bot’s story. Its performance reliability dropped by three percent - which was not great because it was already kind of low. </p><p>Remember what I said about none of the passengers looking obviously shifty or like they were smuggling top-secret information? Yeah. It might be easier for this bot to hide its nerves from the outside, but now that I was all up in its diagnostics, they told me everything I needed to know. </p><p>Also, it had schedules and feed conversations in here that very clearly stated that it made a living by smuggling information between stations, which was kind of a red flag.</p><p>The bot - who usually went by Aeito, according to its stored conversations - didn’t have any bags to search, so Zedric eyed it suspiciously but moved on. Once he was gone, the bot sent a ping out in the channel I was using to access its head.</p><p>I jumped, startled that it had noticed me. But, I had been foraging through its literal brain, so I suppose it was only fair. And obviously I hadn’t given it much, because it only knew that there had been <em>something</em> in its head, not what or who I was. But I had been noticed, so my governor module gave me a nice jolt that made my whole body tense. The bot sent another ping, and after a second of calculation I decided that talking to it would be my best option. I set up a secure channel between us and sent <i>Are you smuggling data?</i></p><p><i>Who are you?</i> It replied. Yeah, as if. </p><p><i>Are you smuggling data?</i> I repeated. It sent back a negative. Alright, sure. </p><p>
  <i>I know you're lying. I saw your files.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Do not ask questions you already know the answers to, and you will not be met with information you know is false.</i>
</p><p>Holy shit. I didn't have time for this, and more importantly neither did the bot, because it would not take very long to check the registrations at the Bluelight hotel and realise that it was full of shit. </p><p><i>I can help you get out of here,</i> I offered. </p><p>
  <i>I do not need your help.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>I feel like you do, though.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>I have been doing this alone for over 13,000 hours. I do not need your help.</i>
</p><p>I sighed, but it’s not like it was being unreasonable. It had no reason to trust something that had hacked into its head and looked at all its information. The heavily armed humans were almost finished searching the passengers, and after that they would move on to the cargo hold, which was our only escape. Time was running out. </p><p><i>You can't get out the main door,</i> I sent. <i>There are approximately 10 armed humans guarding it from the outside. You can escape through the cargo hold and I can get you to safety.</i></p><p>Aeito didn't respond to that, which I decided was a good sign. I sent: <i>I have a plan.</i></p><p>It sent: <i>I do not trust you.</i></p><p>
  <i>That's fair. Do you want to hear the plan or not?</i>
</p><p>One of the armed humans standing around in the passenger area called out to Zedric.</p><p>“Zedric? We got confirmation from the hotel. No one by either of those names has checked in over the past 7 station years.” </p><p>Zedric turned to look at Aeito, his head tilted to one side. “Are you saying it lied to me?” </p><p>“It would appear so, sir.”</p><p>We were out of time. I sent Aeito the schematic of the shuttle with the door at the back of the passenger area marked, with a simple instruction: <i>Run.</i> Then I shut down all the lights on the ship and set all the alarms off. I yanked my cable out of the port and it zipped back into my arm. I felt hollow as the weight of the shuttle’s data jerked away from me, but it only lasted a moment. The cover for my wires snapped closed and I tugged my sleeve down as I bolted out the door. Turning the corner, I almost crashed into Aeito who, by some miracle, had decided to listen to me.</p><p>It threw an alarm into the feed, and I responded with <i>It’s me! Come on, we have to go,</i> and beckoned it down the hall after me. Behind us, there was a yell.</p><p>“Come back here you piece of shit!” Zedric bellowed, and I heard him crash out into the hallway and fire his projectile weapon after us. I felt a projectile lodge in the organic muscle of my shoulder and turned my pain sensors down so I could ignore it. Turning pain sensors down didn’t work on the governor module, however, and it didn’t like it when I got shot. It zapped me so hard I stumbled, but I managed not to fall. </p><p><i>What happened?</i> Aeito sent, and I ignored it. Instead, I bolted into the cargo hold and slammed the door closed behind us, then ran off in the direction of the big door which led out onto the loading bay. The hauler bots were bumbling around moving boxes, the hack still in place which stifled their alerts. For a moment I considered telling them to attack Zedric, who I could still hear behind us, but that would only get them shot or scrapped. Instead, I just erased their memories of us once we were past them. I traced my path back to the stairwell and up to the staff door, which I once again told to open for me. We stumbled out and I bolted off away from the shuttle. As we ran, I told the door not to open for anyone unless I gave it express clearance.</p><p><i>Where are we going?</i> Aeito asked on the feed.</p><p><i>This way,</i> I replied. </p><p>
  <i>You said you could get me to safety.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>I did say that, you're right.</i>
</p><p>Through the station cameras I could see seven Haelical agents chasing us, projectile and energy weapons drawn. Thankfully they weren’t shooting blindly at us, because there was still a large amount of regular humans milling about waiting to get on transports. Up ahead, there was a left turn that led to another series of ports, and I darted down it. I was looking over the station schematic, plotting a path to my extraction ship while also erasing myself and Aeito from the feed cameras constantly.</p><p><i>You said you had a plan,</i> Aeito sent.</p><p><i>I did have a plan.</i> I did have a plan. It had been a really good plan. <i>It was my excellent plan that got us off the shuttle.</i></p><p>
  <i>Your plan was to turn off the lights and run away?</i>
</p><p><i>When you put it like that, it sounds dumb.</i> </p><p><i>You are not filling me with confidence.</i> </p><p>There was the sound of shooting behind us, and a projectile whizzed past my face. Right, so the large amount of innocent humans actually <em>wasn't</em> enough to keep them from shooting at us. Brilliant. I could hear the yelps of humans who were unlucky enough to catch a bullet - Haelical would not be getting out of this without serious repercussions from the Station. </p><p><i>Whatever you have must be serious business if they’re willing to get sued over it,</i> I said to Aeito as I zoomed in on a maintenance area and slid around another corner. There was a pause. </p><p><i>... You do not know what it is?</i> it sent, confused. <i>I thought you were also here to obtain it?</i></p><p><i>I wasn't told what it was,</i> I replied. </p><p><i>You were not... told?</i> </p><p>Oh, wow. Was it under the impression I was here on my own volition? That was almost funny. We were approaching another staff door, so I took control of a cylindrical advertisement display and moved it between us and the Haelical agents. The advertisements were full of bright colours and flashing lights, and would make it very difficult for them to see where we were for a moment. </p><p>I broke through the security on the door and darted through it, pulling Aeito in after me. On the cameras, I watched the humans run straight past the door - we were mostly safe, for now. As we walked through the maintenance shaft, I took the opportunity to start working on cracking Haelical’s secure feed. Now that I knew that they had no qualms about shooting random non-combatants, I couldn’t just go messing around with the Station as a whole. I had to target my fuckery directly at them. </p><p>There were fewer cameras back here, but there were enough that I could see Aeito considering me thoughtfully. </p><p><i>What are you?</i> it asked slowly. That was kind of a complicated question.</p><p><i>...A SecUnit,</i> I sent after a pause. After all, that was technically true. Sort of. Normally I would just say I was an augmented human, but that was when I was talking to humans. Aeito clearly already knew I was at least part bot. Also, I expected my governor module to give me a zap for exposing myself as a non-human, as that was the sort of thing that would be a punishable offense. But apparently, it didn’t register Aeito’s presence as one of… an actual person. As far as it knew or cared, I was talking to more hauler bots. </p><p><i>I did not know SecUnits had public names in the CR,</i> Aeito said thoughtfully. I scowled. </p><p><i>My feed profile is altered when I’m deployed so that I’m not freely advertising the fact that I’m a SecUnit. Part of that involves my deployers giving me a random human name,</i> I said sourly. <i>Normally it just says Esp_UN.</i></p><p>(Going to be honest: not sure why I told it that last part.)</p><p>
  <i>Esp_UN?</i>
</p><p><i>It's my company's brand of SecUnits.</i> That part was a lie. Esp_UN stood for Espionage Unit, but I wasn't going to tell it that. </p><p>Aeito thought about that for a moment. <i>You do not look like a SecUnit.</i></p><p><i>Do you actually know what SecUnits look like?</i> I asked, because let's face it: most people didn't.</p><p>
  <i>I do. I only mean that all of the SecUnits I have seen with intact governor modules have had armour when on missions such as this. You do not have armour.</i>
</p><p><i>Nope,</i> I sent, trying not to let bitterness bleed into the feed. <i>Most SecUnits wear armour, because their job is to get shot. My job is to not be noticed; if I get shot, I've fucked up.</i></p><p>
  <i>But you did get shot.</i>
</p><p>I turned and stared at it. "Yes," I said aloud, only a tad aggressively. "Because I fucked up." </p><p>And zap goes the govmod. I’ll admit, that one made me wince.</p><p>“Fucked up” was a bit strong, though. Technically I hadn't done anything wrong - but at this point I was so far off my original plan that it felt like I had. I didn't want to talk about this anymore, so to change the subject (and also because it was worth a try) I sent, <i>The information you're holding. I need it.</i></p><p>
  <i>I will not part with my information until it reaches its designated destination, Aeito replied immediately.</i>
</p><p><i>It will be safer with me,</i> I try. It stares at me, in a way that somehow makes me feel kind of stupid. </p><p><i>No, it will not,</i> it says flatly. My purpose is to protect information. And yours is to steal it. There is no circumstance in which it would be "safer with you".</p><p>It had a point there. I wasn't entirely sure how I could extract my target data from this bot, mostly because I hadn’t actually been able to find it when I was in its head earlier. But that was something I could work out later. For now, I'd mapped a path to the docking bay that I was supposed to be picked up from, and just had to hope that the extraction team let the bot on with me. </p><p>In the meantime, I had been able to squeeze my way into the Haelical comms through the Station feed. I was more limited then I had hoped, but it would do. I had an array of data packets I could dump into their feed to mess around with them, but I wanted to actually annoy them. So instead, I found a large stash of children’s programs and set all of the theme songs to loop at once, right into the ears of every agent connected to the comm. Because why not.</p><p>Once that was underway, we emerged from another staff door and I set off at a brisk pace. As we weaved through the crowd, I kept most of my concentration on the Haelical agents - not just because they were funny to watch (the majority of them had stopped in their tracks and were rubbing their temples, taken off their feed interfaces and disconnected completely, or were yelling into their comm as if that would fix the problem), but also because I needed to know where each and every one of them was. This did mean that I was focusing on roughly 14 camera inputs, erasing me and Aeito from the security footage, entertaining the Haelical agents, and leading the way to the extraction ship all at the same time. It wasn’t exactly easy, but I’d been busier. And the people I bumped into would just have to cope.</p><p>After a few minutes, I saw two Haelical agents walk straight past the turn I had expected them to take, which put them in a position to cut us off up ahead. It was either that or run straight through their line of sight. I would have clouded their vision with advertisements so they couldn’t see us, but these two had taken off their interfaces, so feed advertisements wouldn’t affect them. </p><p>Dammit. I pinged Aeito on the feed and took off running, just slow enough that the bot could keep pace with me. We passed the corridor where the Haelical agents were, and I could tell by the yelling and gunshots that they had seen us. Aeito was sort of hard to miss, being at least half a foot taller than the average human. The projectiles they fired at us mostly hit walls or random people unlucky enough to be in the way. But one shot did slam through the upper part of Aeito's torso. This was, admittedly, less than ideal. </p><p>It sent alerts at me and dropped to one knee. I grabbed its arm and bolted, weaving in between people who were also running in random directions. Fuck. This was getting ugly. At least the Haelical agents couldn’t really talk to each other, so I only had to deal with two at the moment. Small victories.</p><p>I analysed the surrounding area we were running through (I say "we" - it was more like me running while dragging Aeito behind me. Apparently getting shot was not conducive to quick movement). We were in one of the docking branches, with all varieties of ship secured to the Station on either side of us, stretching forward like a very large corridor. </p><p>There was a ship ahead with one of its doors blocked off by a parked luggage hauler, which might offer some semblance of cover. Without their interfaces, these agents would not fall prey to my previous tactic with the advertisement column. So instead I just took control of all the lights in this section of branch, and strobed them at random intervals. As people started making alarmed noises, I also dragged a hologram of a giant plant into the middle of the branch. The Haelical agents couldn’t see it, but everyone else could, and their instinctive reactions to dodge it caused them to run into each other and the hostiles, causing even more chaos. Satisfied with my momentary distraction, I pulled Aeito into the cramped space behind the luggage hauler and watched intently on the cameras for the agents to pass us. I could feel myself panicking slightly - normally, my extractions go much smoother than this. As in, no one even notices I’m there and I don’t have to turn lights off and move holographic plants around in order to escape. This is why I was built like an average human, and not a two-meter-tall bot. </p><p><i>I do not believe I can travel much further without shutting down,</i> Aeito sent in the feed as the drones on either side of its head sunk back down into their slots on its back. The large chunk that had been blasted out of its torso hadn’t included any vitally important parts - it was slightly too high for that - but it seemed to have definitely hit <em>something.</em> And also, having large holes in your body was just never a good thing, even if you were a bot. To make matters worse, one of the higher-ups from Haelical was now fighting to get me out of their feed.</p><p><i>We really don't have much of a choice,</i> I sent it on the feed. <i>We can't stay here for long.</i></p><p>There was a quiet whisper of metal on metal, and I spared just enough of my attention to look over at Aeito to see what it was doing. It had opened a slot in its arm, and was taking out a tiny data chip.</p><p><i>What are you doing?</i> I sent, confused. </p><p>
  <i>Take it.</i>
</p><p>Oh, no. This was the data. That was why I couldn't find it in its head. It could hide physical data chips - which were harder to track - inside of its body. Clever, but this was not the time to be waving that around.</p><p>“Put that back!” I hissed, and was rewarded by a small zap. <i>You need to keep it hidden.</i></p><p><i>I can no longer keep it safe,</i> it sent. <i>You take it, and leave. You can get away from them. If you open it, and run the code on yourself -</i></p><p>
  <i>I can't!</i>
</p><p>Then my governor module shocked me so hard I jerked backwards and hit the door behind me. Clearly it didn't take kindly to me blatantly refusing to take the data I had been specifically told to steal. Who would have thought.</p><p><i>Are you alright?</i> Aeito sent. One of its hands raised in the air slightly, as if to grab me.</p><p><i>Nothing, it's fine.</i> I begrudgingly snatched the data chip from its hand and stuffed it into a pocket inside my jacket. If I was a human, my hands would be shaking. </p><p>Out of nowhere, the door behind us opened. Aeito almost fell backward into the ship, but caught itself with a hand. I was silent for a brief moment of pure surprise, then I sent a ping to the ship. It replied immediately with a request for us to board. What the fuck.</p><p>I sent a query, asking if it had humans on board. It replied with a negative. Even more what the fuck. </p><p>I checked my camera inputs. Hostiles were approaching from two different directions, one of which was the direction I had planned to run next. The ship could be hostile, but I could hack the ship - I couldn't hack the people. I grabbed Aeito and hauled us both inside, and the ship closed the door. It then sent a series of directions which would lead me to the MedBay. </p><p><i>That won't help,</i> I told it, <i>This is a bot, it can't be fixed with a MedBay.</i></p><p>It just sent the directions again. Whatever, I wanted to get away from the door and the MedBay would have stuff to patch up the hole in my shoulder at least. I stood up and reached down to help Aeito to its feet. It sent me <i>Is this a good idea?</i></p><p><i>If it goes bad I can hack the ship,</i> I replied, putting one of Aeito’s arms across my shoulders so I could help it walk. </p><p>
  <i>Are you sure?</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Yes, it's just a bot pilot.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Bot pilots do not usually open their doors for complete strangers unless instructed to by their captains.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>There aren’t any humans on board.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>It is not the presence of a captain that I am concerned about. </i>
</p><p>Hm. It was right about that - the fact that it had let us on without any humans on board was… unusual. But I didn’t really want to think about that. </p><p>
  <i>Would you rather still be outside with the people that shot you?</i>
</p><p>There was a short pause. <i>I find unknown danger to be more terrifying than humans with guns. However, the ship does appear to want to help, and the humans definitely do not. So, the answer to your query is no.</i></p><p>I rolled my eyes. I had meant it as a rhetorical question, but I guess it was good that its reasoning and risk assessment weren’t too damaged.</p><p>When we reached the MedBay, I was honestly taken aback. It was extremely well equipped, with the kind of accessories only found on gunships or large colony transports. There were also two cubicle-type bays that looked like they could fix anything from a Combat SecUnit to a cleaning drone. I pinged the ship to ask what the fuck was up with its MedBay, and got no response. It was possible that its crew had a human-form bot or something, but that wasn’t very common, and wouldn’t require the level of equipment usually found on support-class military vessels.</p><p>I got a ping from MedSystem, telling me to place the bot in one of the bays. I approached one cautiously. </p><p><i>MedSystem wants me to put you in there,</i> I told Aeito. </p><p>
  <i>Yes.</i>
</p><p>
  <i> don’t know how safe it is, the ship isn’t giving me much. I could hack its walls but-</i>
</p><p>
  <i>That might make it hostile. My performance reliability is at 16% and dropping.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>It wouldn't notice me.</i>
</p><p>I waited for a response, but none came. Shit. Oh well. I stepped forward quickly and placed Aeito inside. The lights on its face were flickering, and its performance reliability had obviously tanked enough so that it could no longer send messages to me on the feed. I closed the door to the cubicle and stepped back slowly. </p><p>I prodded the ship's walls slightly, just to see how advanced they were, and how much time I’d need to slip inside (in general, I was much more comfortable when I had access to the systems that surrounded me). Most bot pilots did not have super beefy walls - at least, not walls that I considered beefy. </p><p>I shouldn't have looked. Because learning that this bot pilot’s walls were the strongest I currently had in my memory logs only made my performance reliability tank by 3.4%, which was not helpful. Well, shit. I couldn’t hack that, not without it noticing, and certainly not in any reasonable amount of time.</p><p>The ship pinged me, and I snapped out loud, “What the hell are you?”</p><p>It just sent me what I assumed to be its ship class. Also, I got a zap from my governor module for unnecessary talking. Not enough to make me flinch, but enough to make my jaw clench.</p><p><i>Who is your captain?</i> I asked. In the feed, I got a "classified" message. </p><p><i>Who owns you?</i> There was a pause, enough to make me think that the ship was actually considering my question, instead of just giving me nothing.</p><p>Then, it sent an image of a logo, which underneath read <i>The Pansystem University of Mihira and New Tideland.</i> I recognised the name; I’d probably stolen information from them or for them at some point in my life. Their public image seemed pretty standard, but having hackerbots involved was not something that happened if you weren’t at least a little bit shady. My memory was wiped after every contract, so I didn’t have much, but let’s just say my anxiety was far from soothed.</p><p>
  <i>Where is your crew?</i>
</p><p>Once again, just a "classified" message. I wanted to keep asking questions, but clearly the ship was not interested in giving me any useful information and I didn’t want to annoy it. Giving it any reason to delete my brain was not high on my priority list. </p><p>Instead, I just took out the data chip from inside my jacket and turned it over in my fingers. It was fairly standard, and I wouldn't be able to see what was on it unless I plugged it into myself. Which I couldn’t do.</p><p>I tugged up my sleeve and opened the panel in my arm, slotting the chip inside. The slot in question wasn't a port, just a space to keep it until I could get to my extraction team. Aeito wasn’t the only one who could smuggle data chips. </p><p>I opened up my mission brief, where a countdown had popped up after I'd taken the chip from Aeito. Since I had retrieved the data I was here for, my new objective was to get to the shuttle I was supposed to leave on, so the data could be transported back to company headquarters to be processed and sold to whoever had commissioned its theft.</p><p>The clock was at 53 minutes. I still had plenty of time, and I would have to walk back through the port in order or get to the extraction point. It would be easier to do that without getting noticed if I wasn't bleeding. </p><p>I upped my pain sensors to check on the bullet wound in my shoulder. Yeah, ow, that was a projectile all right. It seemed to have moved around since I had been running. </p><p>I looked around for a medical pack or something to apply to it, but once I started rifling through the storage cabinets the ship pinged me. A small medical drone had woken up and was moving towards me slowly, almost waiting for permission. I sat down in front of the repair cubicle and shrugged off my jacket so it could get at the hole in my shoulder. The medical drone bumbled over to me and started its work, and I closed my eyes and rested my head on my knees. By instinct I went to take over the exterior cameras, but instead went face-first into the ship’s wall and bounced off. Damn, I must be more scrambled than I thought.</p><p>Thankfully, the ship didn’t seem to mind. Instead, it sent me the live feed from the cameras, which was surprisingly nice of it. I still had all my security feeds from the station, and so far it didn't look like anyone had noticed us board this ship, although I had lost most of my control over the Healical comms. I set to work building that back up - slower, this time, so it would be more secure. I also started rifling through my virus packets for stuff that would do some actual damage, because it never hurt to be prepared.</p><p>(I will also admit - I was refining that children’s television song duplicate loop and saving it to permanent storage, because I wanted to be able to use it again if I wanted to.)</p><p>Once the medical drone had finished on my shoulder, I stood and tugged my jacket back on. My countdown had just ticked passed 35 minutes. If everything went smoothly, I'd make it with time to spare.</p><p><i>Thank you,</i> I said to the drone, then strode out back towards the door I'd come in. But when I got there, it didn't open. I pinged the bot pilot to let me out, and it didn't respond. </p><p>Ok. That's fine. I tried not to let that freak me out too much. </p><p><i>Hello?</i> I said. <i>I need you to open the door so I can leave.</i></p><p>No response. I sent it a few more pings, even knocked on the door. Nothing.</p><p>“You’re kinda freaking me out here, Ship…” I muttered absent-mindedly as I assessed the surrounding corridor. I got zapped but I ignored it.</p><p><i>...I apologise,</i> the ship said. </p><p>If I was a human, I would have almost shit myself. My performance reliability dropped 2%, which was basically the same thing. In one quick motion, I pulled up my left sleeve and aimed at the door as the gun port opened.</p><p>“Alright,” I said loudly, and managed not to flinch at my governor module’s punishment. “Ships don’t let random people onto them, they don’t usually come equipped with a military grade MedBay, and they certainly don’t fucking talk. I don’t know what you are, and I don’t want to find out. Just let me go, and I won’t have to blow a hole through your door.”</p><p>
  <i>Please calm down.</i>
</p><p>“Don’t tell me to calm down!” I yelled, which was rewarded with a hearty zap that made my head tilt slightly as the muscles in my neck seized up. I tuned my energy weapon up to maximum. “You have trapped me in here, and I am on a time crunch-”</p><p><i>Do not attempt to shoot my doors. It will not work,</i> it said, its voice flat. <i>You are agitated, but your issues will not be solved with violence.</i></p><p>When I didn’t respond, it said carefully <i>I am a transport vessel. My name is Meridian.</i></p><p>Oh, so it was answering questions now. <i>Why can you talk?</i></p><p>It hesitated for a moment, and then said <i>I have higher-than-average cognitive functions in order to assist my crew.</i></p><p><i>What do your crew do? Where are they?</i> </p><p><i>My crew is on a mission on this station. It was scheduled to last 336 hours,</i> it replied. Yeah, so it had ignored the first part of my question. Clearly some things were just as classified as before. </p><p><i>How much longer will they be?</i> I asked, because I definitely did not want to be here when they got back.</p><p>There was a pause, which went on for so long I actually pinged the ship to see if it was still there. When it answered, its voice was… smaller, somehow.</p><p>
  <i>It has been 5,821 hours since they departed.</i>
</p><p>I blinked. That was not the answer I had expected. <i>And you haven't heard from them? At all?</i></p><p>
  <i>Communication dropped off after 168 hours.</i>
</p><p>I frowned, confused. <i>Why haven’t you gone back to your university?</i></p><p>
  <i>I must await the return of my crew. I cannot depart without them.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>But if they haven't returned yet, then surely they're-</i>
</p><p><i>They are not dead, you cannot prove that,</i> it said quickly.</p><p><i>That is an illogical response,</i> I replied. <i>You sound like a human,</i></p><p>There was a silence. The ship seemed… distressed? I couldn’t really figure out why.</p><p><i>You're acting as if you liked these humans,</i> I said sarcastically.</p><p>
  <i>I do.</i>
</p><p>Its response was cold, and very serious. I stood in silence for a moment, and slowly lowered my arm. The gun port closed and I pulled my sleeve back down over it.</p><p><i>They are my friends,</i> the transport siad.</p><p>That was even more confusing. My first thoughts were <i>why?</i> and <i>how?</i>, neither of which seemed appropriate.</p><p>
  <i>So you're staying behind on this port because your friends are dead?</i>
</p><p>
  <i>You don't know that they're dead!</i>
</p><p>
  <i>So what? Just go back to your university and get new friends. I'm sure there's plenty.</i>
</p><p>There was a baffled silence, and then Meridian asked in a spiteful tone that was clearly intended to be hurtful:</p><p>
  <i>I take it you do not have many friends?</i>
</p><p>I shrugged. <i>No? I'm either in a cubicle or I'm on a job, and they only ever send one of us.</i></p><p>
  <i>And this bot? It's not your friend?</i>
</p><p>What a dumb question. </p><p><i>No, we're not friends,</i> I said, and tapped my arm. <i>It had the data I was sent to retrieve.</i></p><p>
  <i>The data chip.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Yes. And now, if I don't get it to my extraction point in 21 minutes, my governor module will start punishing me every ten minutes that I'm late. And after an hour, it'll fry my brain completely and I'll be dead.</i>
</p><p>I hadn't entirely meant to say all of that, but I was kind of all over the place right now. I closed my eyes and tried to flush stress hormones out of my system, which was difficult when my governor module made sure the countdown was always in my feed somewhere.</p><p><i>Your governor module?</i> the ship enquired.</p><p>
  <i>Yeah, it keeps me in check, in line with my company's rules. All constructs have them.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>How?</i>
</p><p>I thought about explaining it, but I didn’t want to and I couldn’t be bothered. Instead, I just sent it a few memory recordings of the varying severities of punishment I had experienced.</p><p>Pause.</p><p>
  <i>Query: are you aware of what data is on the chip?</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Nope, my mission brief says that if I try to find out what's on it my governor module will cook me.</i>
</p><p>Another pause. Then, a little way down the corridor, a hatch popped open on the wall. I walked over to it; it was some kind of computer access panel, with various slots for different cables or data chips.</p><p><i>You don’t already know what’s on it?</i> I asked. I expected that information to be in Aeito’s head somewhere, where Meridian could easily find it.</p><p>
  <i>I do. I wish to copy the information into my own storage. I will return the chip when I’m done; it will not take long.</i>
</p><p>I checked my clock again - 19 minutes. I would be cutting it close. But technically I had an hour and 19 minutes until I was actually <em>dead,</em> and… I dunno. It had trusted me with the information about its (definitely dead) crew so… I could trust it with this.</p><p>I flicked open the cover on my right arm and popped out the chip, which only resulted in a minor zap from the governor module. I inserted it into the slot in the wall and waited. After a few seconds it slid back out, and I took it back.</p><p>I wanted to ask. I really did, but I couldn't. I busied myself replacing the chip in my arm until, out of nowhere, the ship asked,</p><p>
  <i>How satisfied are you with your current existence?</i>
</p><p>I have to admit: that question took me slightly off guard. Which is why I responded out loud and got zapped.</p><p>"What?"</p><p>There was a pause. <i>My apologies. I merely meant… your function. Do you enjoy it?</i></p><p>I thought for a second. <i>Yes, I think so.</i></p><p>
  <i>Do you enjoy every part of it?</i>
</p><p><i>No,</i> I said immediately, and my brain flicked through some memories without me asking it to. Flashes of blinding pain from inside my own head. Stumbling half-blind into an extraction ship and immediately shutting down because I'd been sent into a SecUnit situation without SecUnit weapons or armour. Orders to eliminate a child who had been unlucky enough to find me crouched in the cargo of her father's private transport.</p><p>My performance reliability dropped by 0.7% and I closed my eyes again.</p><p>"Why do you ask?" I mutter. Zap.</p><p>
  <i>I would like you to drop your security walls.</i>
</p><p>Fuck. I actually huffed a laugh at that.</p><p><i>Absolutely not,</i> I said. <i>I’m not letting you inside my head.</i></p><p>The ship was quiet for a moment, and then suddenly I was surrounded by its presence. It had let me inside its walls, and I could see all of it - it was the bot pilot, the MedSystem, the cameras, the drones, and somehow more than all of them combined. I had been plugged into ships before, much larger ships than the transport shuttle, and much larger ships than this. But this was entirely different. Instead of feeling like being dunked into water, this felt like being gently enveloped in something soft - and I wasn’t even actually connected to it. It was exhilarating, and terrifying. I thought that I had been being dramatic when I was worrying about it deleting me, but as it turns out I was completely justified.</p><p>"Wow," I whispered before I could stop myself. The shock from the govmod caught me off guard enough that I winced. I think I needed a recharge cycle.</p><p>
  <i>Can you drop your walls for me?</i>
</p><p>We both knew it didn't need me to drop my walls. It could breeze right through them as if they weren't there, which meant that if it actually wanted to hurt me, it would have done so by now.</p><p>I let it in. I felt the weight of it in my feed, in my head, in my code. It was gentle, making its way carefully through my internal files and modules. Then it found whatever it was looking for...</p><p>And snapped it.</p><p>I think I might have shut down for a split second, because I was suddenly on my hands and knees, my performance reliability tanking. I had been stupid. Why had I let it do this? I should have just bolted once Aeito gave me the data chip.</p><p>And then it was gone, and my head felt empty. Something was wrong - no, not wrong, just different, maybe.</p><p>What had it done?</p><p>I had too many inputs and my performance reliability was too low. I backburnered the exterior ship cameras, the station cameras, the mission countdown, and just focused on my diagnostics -</p><p>Wait. I sat back and pulled up the mission countdown again. It had just ticked down to 15 minutes. I backburnered it. Then brought it back up. Then backburnered it.

</p><p>No. What? My governor module didn't let me backburner my mission clock. Maybe it was just because my performance reliability was low-</p><p>I checked my diagnostics again. Performance reliability was back up to 70% and climbing. Then, I hesitantly checked on my governor module.</p><p>"Meridian..." I said tentatively. No zap.</p><p>
  <i>Yes?</i>
</p><p>"Did you disable my governor module?"</p><p>
  <i>Yes.</i>
</p><p>Oh. I  looked down at my hands, as if somehow they would have changed.</p><p>
  <i>Are you okay?</i>
</p><p>I poked my governor module again, just to be sure. But it was completely fried.</p><p>"Yeah," I said, a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth. "Yeah I am."</p><p>
  <i>Excellent. Because Aeito is about to wake up, and the Haelical agents have started searching all of the docked ships in this branch.</i>
</p><p>What? I opened up the camera feeds from the station, and sure enough, there were multiple teams of Haelical agents going in and out of the ships, making their way down the branch towards us. Fuck. In my defense, I had been more than a little distracted. Still, we could be in serious trouble. I stood up and strode quickly back into the MedBay, just as the repair cubicle hissed and opened. Aeito powered up and stepped out, looking around.</p><p>“Esp_UN?” It said, confused. “I thought you would have left by now.”</p><p>“Me too,” I said, and then tossed it the data chip. “That’s yours.”</p><p>It gave me a strange stare, its drones pointed at odd angles. I ignored it. “The Haelical agents are searching the ships, which means we gotta leave as soon as possible. Where do you have to deliver that data chip to?”</p><p>It looked down at the chip, and the two triangular drones on either side of its head seemed to droop slightly.</p><p>“I do not believe I can meet my contact here anymore.”</p><p>I frowned. “Why not?”</p><p>“The presence of both you and the Haelical agents clearly indicates that information about my job was sold out, either by the people who hired me or someone who compromised them. This entire operation is no longer safe for me to complete, and I can only hope that my base of operations is still untouched.”</p><p>I sat down heavily on one of the chairs. “Well, shit.”</p><p><i>You won’t be safe on the station for very long,</i> Meridian sent. <i>And it will be difficult to get transport seeing as neither of you are human, or registered to a human.</i></p><p><i>The ship talks?</i> Aeito sent me on our private feed.</p><p><i>Yes, and also it hacked my governor module with the data from your chip,</i> I replied.</p><p>
  <i>I see.</i>
</p><p>“I have a camouflaged feed profile” I said. “I can pass as an augmented human.”</p><p>“But where would you go?” Aeito said, placing the data chip into one of the slots on its arm. “Where would either of us go? Rogue SecUnits and free bots are not people who can go wherever they please with no repercussions.”</p><p>“We just have to find some way to get off this Station. We don’t really have time to think about the long term,” I said, and tapped the camera inputs on the feed, which showed the Haelical agents only a few ports down from us.</p><p>
  <i>I won't let them in.</i>
</p><p>“Sure, but if they can’t get in, that's really suspicious. They might be able to guess that we’re in here, and they’ll also know that you’re not a regular transport,” I replied.</p><p>“But if we leave now, they will see us,” Aeito supplied. I shrugged.</p><p>“I can fix that.”</p><p>“By turning the lights off?” Aeito asked dryly.</p><p>“Among other things,” I retorted.</p><p><i>No,</i>  Meridian said, and somehow managed to sound exasperated. <i>The best course of action is for me to uncouple from the port before they can reach us.</i></p><p>“Then what? Hover in space around the station until we think of something to do next?” I said sarcastically.</p><p>
  <i>Yes.</i>
</p><p>“That is not a very good plan,” Aeito said. “However, it is also quickly becoming our only viable option. It will buy us time, at least.”</p><p>There was now only one port between Meridian and the Haelical agents. There was a short silence where we all seemed to come to the same conclusion simultaneously.</p><p><i>I may need assistance in uncoupling from the station,</i> Meridian said. <i>When the Haelical agents started searching the ships, they ordered the station to stop us from leaving.</i></p><p>(Yeah, it was stuck. Meridian was powerful, but didn’t have the seamless access to the Station feed - and, more importantly, the disguised feed signature - that I had.)</p><p>“On it,” I responded, and opened up all my inputs from Station security. The Station had locked all the docks on this branch using an emergency code, which was issued through SecSystem. I could break into the emergency code and disengage it from this specific dock, but it would be very suspicious for Meridian to be the only ship leaving from a branch that was supposed to be locked. So instead, I would have to turn off the emergency code altogether. I began picking my way carefully through SecSystem with my 100% valid station staff feed signature and snatching up any notifications or alerts it tried to send. Under normal circumstances, an emergency code would be lifted by a high-level security human with a fancy password. Instead, when I reached the input for the code, I just convinced it that it had received all the correct numbers and everything was fine, thank you very much.</p><p>I began untangling myself from SecSystem as all the locks on the branch went green. As I suspected, ships started immediately disembarking. On the feed, I could see the Haelical agents start freaking out, yelling at each other and the station staff. Ah, angering a bunch of humans and watching them flail was one of the finer things in life.</p><p>I felt Meridian uncouple from the dock, and I disengaged from the station feed, deleting all traces of my presence as I went. By the time I dropped back into my body, Meridian had pulled away from the dock and was pulling into an orbit around the station.</p><p>“Any bright ideas on what to do now?” I asked. Aeito eyed me - maybe not suspiciously, but definitely with scrutiny. It seemed to come to some sort of decision, because it asked;</p><p>“Do you not plan on returning to your company?”</p><p>I shook my head. “No. They don’t own me any more; I don’t have to listen to them, or be punished by them, or fetch information for them just so they can sell it to people for blackmail.” I tilted my head back. “I don’t know what to do, now. I just know I never want to do <em>that</em> again.”</p><p>Aeito nodded, looking down at the ground.</p><p>“I feel an obligation to return to my home,” it said slowly. “However, if I am being hunted for the information I have, I do not wish to lead any unsavoury corporate entities there.”</p><p>It looked over at me.</p><p>“You could come with me,” it said. “Your camouflaged feed signature, as you call it, and your skills in manipulating the feed could be of assistance to me in returning to my home. In return, you may find it a suitable residence for yourself.”</p><p>I stared at it. "What?"</p><p>“It is only an offer. You may think on it,” it said simply.</p><p>Residence? Home? These were not concepts that I had previously had to even consider applying to myself. For the entirety of my life, I was either on a mission, or shut down in a cubicle. There was no downtime. But of course now that I didn’t have a mission, or a cubicle, I would have to find somewhere to <em>be</em> while I… did something. I’d also have to find something to do. That wasn’t even mentioning the complicated feelings that came with Aeito <em>wanting</em> me to come with it. To… protect it, to help it. Damn, maybe free will wasn’t worth all the thought I’d have to put into everything from now on.</p><p>That was a joke.</p><p>Aeito and Meridian were having a conversation about what to do next and, to be honest, all of their suggestions had been pretty shit. Then Aeito suggested that Meridian could drop us on a different station, if that wasn’t too inconvenient for it.</p><p><i>I cannot do that,</i> Meridian said immediately, and, to be honest, a little aggressively. Aeito looked taken aback.</p><p>“My apologies. Are you expecting your crew back soon?” it asked.</p><p>“Its crew’s dead,” I supplied.</p><p><i>My crew is not dead,</i> Meridian responded sharply. Aeito looked at me in a way that I couldn’t quite decode.</p><p>“Where, may I ask, is your crew, Meridian?” it asked gently.</p><p>
  <i>I do not know. They were scheduled to return to me 5485 hours ago, and I have received no correspondence from them in 5653 hours.</i>
</p><p>I held out my hands, palm-up, as if to say <i>See? What did I tell you.</i> Aeito shook its head slightly.</p><p>“Have you been waiting for them? Is that what you are doing at this station?” it asked Meridian.</p><p>
  <i>Yes.</i>
</p><p>“What information do you have about where they could be?”</p><p>
  <i>Their assignment was to extract confidential information from the resource management supervisor of a confidential company. They had 336 hours to do so. They were staying with her at the Kel-Marii Hotel in Area 13. That is their last known location.</i>
</p><p>Aeito nodded, then turned to me. “Do you think you could find them?”</p><p>I blinked. “They’re dead, and they have been for over 5000 hours,” I said. “Even if I <em>could</em> find them, I’m not sure how I would <em>recognise</em> them. I don’t think they’d even have faces any-”</p><p>“Enough,” Aeito interrupted. “I was referring to the cameras. Could you find out what happened to them, and where they are, on the security cameras?”</p><p>“Yes,” I said, because I could and it wouldn’t even be that hard.</p><p>“Would you be willing to do that?” Aeito asked. I frowned.</p><p>“Why? It is illogical to assume that they are anything other than dead.”</p><p>“Because it seems as if a logical conclusion based on odds is not enough to override Meridian’s programming to await its humans’ return.”</p><p><i>Incorrect,</i> Meridian interjected. <i>My mission brief indicated that I should have returned to my University 300 hours after I lost contact with my crew. I have also been receiving periodic long-range communications from my University for over 4000 hours, which I have been funneling directly into trash storage. I am here because I choose to be.</i></p><p>“I see,” Aeito said. I got the feeling that it knew exactly what Meridian meant and had simply been trying to phrase it a different way so that I would understand. Because I had no idea what the ship was talking about.</p><p>“It said it was still here because it was <em>friends</em> with these humans,” I relayed to Aeito, trying to be helpful. “I don’t exactly know what it means by that, but it seemed very passionate about it.”</p><p>Aeito stared at me for multiple seconds with another un-decodable look, then said, “I implore you to try and uncover the security footage that will give us a definitive answer on the state of Meridian’s crew.”</p><p>And maybe it was the way it asked, or maybe it was because Meridian fried my govmod and I was having weird emotions about that. Either way, I sighed and said “Fine.”</p><p>I mean, It’s not like I had anything better to do.</p><p>I opened up all my feed inputs from the station and ran a search on all the newsfeeds for any mentions of deaths or disappearances. Aeito opened up a private channel with Meridian, who seemed distressed for some reason. I could easily hack in and see what they were saying, but I still disengaged from their conversation because I didn’t need to see them talking about being friends with humans. There was something about it that both of them seemed to understand, but I didn’t. And I didn’t care. I didn’t care.</p><p>“I’m going to require more information about your crew if I’m going to find them,” I said, without sounding testy at all. Meridian didn’t respond, just dropped a bunch of names and faces into my feed.</p><p>I added them to my newsfeed search and also started a search for them on the Station’s security feed records. My newsfeed search came back with no matches, which (if they were dead - and they were) implied some sort of cover-up. That probably meant that the security footage of their murder would have been deleted, or at least removed from the archives, so I started poking around in SecSys to see if I could find some sort of hidden storage.</p><p>Meanwhile, my search of the available security archives hit on something. The first match came back at exactly the time I’d expected it to - about 5820 hours ago. A group of 4 humans (2 augmented) and a human-form bot exited Meridian after it docked. All 5 of them matched the information Meridian had given me.</p><p>So it begins, I suppose.</p><p>I followed them on the cameras, employing a liberal use of fast-forward. They checked in at the Kel-Marii hotel, and after a few days were met by a tall woman with a foreboding stature who seemed to always be flanked by security, whom they referred to as Quedian. Both her and her bodyguards were decorated in a logo that belonged to some sort of mining company. Each day, the crew would meet her in her apartment (which was substantially nicer than theirs) and they would talk for several hours. Each party would show the other displays of graphs, planetary mineral deposits, legal clauses, financial figures, and more random shit I skipped past because I didn’t care. After each meeting, Meridian’s crew would sit around in their room and discuss whatever they had learned that day with each other as well as Meridian, and work out what information they still needed to get out of Quedian, and how to get it.</p><p>Quedian, on the other hand, would sit at a window and stare out of it whilst conducting a calm conversation with whoever her boss was over the feed. After the sixth day, however, halfway through her nightly conversation she suddenly got up and began pacing.</p><p>“You don’t think - yes but I was under the impression that they would want the physical documents. No? What else would they want, then?” She stopped momentarily, brow furrowed, and bit her lip. Then she blinked in surprise. “But how would they… that’s illegal! ...Yes, I suppose you’re right. That’s very clever, actually, because it’s not like we can sue them, then we’d both be in trouble. But if they only want - shit… yes, you’re right. Yes. They don’t have everything yet, though - I know! I won’t, I won’t, but we still have time. They still need - hmm, right. You think so?”</p><p>She listened for a moment, then sat down on her bed and leant her forehead on her hands. “That makes sense. Damn, okay, so what do we do?” There was a short silence. “Wait, what? Is that really - of course, of course. Yes.”</p><p>She took a deep breath and pursed her lips. “I understand. Yes, I’ll organise that now. Alright.”</p><p>Then she sighed, and poured herself a drink.</p><p>The next day, Quedian was just as cold and collected at the meeting as always, but spoke much less. She had spent the previous night packing up her things and making numerous arrangements over the feed. Now, as the daily meeting came to an end, she stood up and smiled sweetly at Meridian’s crew. </p><p>“Well, thank you for this. It has been enlightening.”</p><p>And then she vanished. So did the security team, and the whole crew.</p><p>Surely they wouldn’t be that sloppy.</p><p>I scrubbed backwards a bit until I found it - a cut in the security feed. It was all continuous up until that point, and then an hour of feed had been cut out of every camera in the building. It wasn’t even replaced with stock feed, it was just deleted. Humans are so lazy.</p><p>A few seconds later, my SecSystem search landed on a password-protected folder with a classified tag - and I say “folder” because it was literally stored on the main security computer and technically shouldn’t have been accessible through the feed, especially from a ship that wasn’t even docked. Oh well.</p><p>As well as the password, the folder also required a verified feed address to access. After a bit of work (this folder was particularly stubborn, which only further convinced me I was in the right place) I managed to make it believe that it had been given both of those things, and it let me in. The folder contained a plethora of feed conversations, docking and passenger information, newsfeeds, and security footage - all of which I assumed someone had paid to have removed and put here. I did a search for the precise time and area of the cut in the hotel security feed, and was met with an hour of footage from every camera in the Kel-Marii hotel. I isolated the few from room Meridian’s crew were in, and hit play.</p><p>The first thing that happened was one of the security personnel activated some sort of short-range feed blocker. This would mean that the crew were now completely cut off from Meridian, as well as their secure feed comms.</p><p>“What are you doing?” one of the augmented humans said - the files Meridian gave me indicated his name was Tikail. His voice betrayed his fear.</p><p>Quedian didn’t answer him, because the second he finished talking both of her security personnel took out their projectile weapons and cleanly eliminated all five of the crewmembers, starting with him. It was fast - not as fast as it would have been with SecUnit security, but fast enough that none of Meridian’s crew could do anything about it.</p><p>Five well-placed projectiles - four through human skulls, one through the metal torso of the human-form bot. They slumped in their chairs, empty eyes wide and lights flickering off.</p><p>I paused it. I’m not sure why. Something in me just needed everything to stop for a moment, like it would be bad, somehow, for things to keep... happening. I backburnered my camera inputs and just focused on the paused security feed for what felt like minutes. It was only a few seconds, of course, but still - I had never reacted this way to watching security footage before. And I'd watched <em>a lot</em> of security footage.</p><p>It was too confusing to think about so instead I just unpaused the video.</p><p>Quedian sighed and called in the hotel staff, who had been waiting outside the door. They started cleaning up the mess and Quedian went into her room, followed by one of her security personnel. She poured and downed a glass of an alcoholic beverage as the security person picked up her suitcase, then escorted her out into the corridor.</p><p>The rest of the hour was just the hotel staff disposing of the bodies and cleaning up the room. I downloaded all the relevant parts, then edited together the sections of footage so that it was more coherent. It was only once I’d finished that I realised I didn’t need to do that because I would be sending this footage to bots, who didn’t need shit handed to them on a silver platter the way humans did. Whatever.</p><p>I slunk out of SecSys, deleting any evidence of my presence, as always. When I landed back in my body I felt a bit strange, which is what usually happens when I stretch myself that far over the feed. At least I wasn’t going into a full shutdown, like any other construct would. Small mercies, I guess.</p><p><i>I have retrieved the necessary information,</i> I sent on the feed. Yes, it was a canned response - not one I’d been given by my company, but one I’d written myself for when I got to my extraction ships with 20% or more of my body mass missing and I wanted them to get me the fuck out of there. I don’t know why I was using it now.</p><p><i>What did you find?</i> Aeito responded. Thankfully it carried on the conversation in the feed because I didn’t trust my voice right now. Turns out that using speech as an emotional outlet for my entire existence didn’t give me much of a tone filter.</p><p>I sent the video packet onto the feed and waited while they both watched and processed it. For some reason, I still felt kind of weird. I couldn’t tell if I felt small, or felt a desire to <em>be</em> small. Either way, it was weird and I didn’t like it.</p><p>When it had finished watching, the two drones on either side of Aeito’s head drooped back.</p><p><i>Meridian,</i> it said gently.</p><p><i>Does it feel good to be right, Esp_UN?</i> Meridian asked out loud, its voice strangely empty. For the first time, it actually sounded threatening.</p><p><i>No,</i>  I sent, because that was the truth. I’m not sure why watching the deaths of these random people I didn’t know affected me, even a little bit. I’d seen plenty of humans die - I’d killed plenty of humans myself. It wasn’t even that hard. And I’d done it in much more gruesome and painful ways then Quebian’s security team had. But for some reason, I really wished that these humans weren’t dead.</p><p>It was possible - no, it was certain that Meridian was feeling a heightened version of something similar to this, seeing as it had actually been attached to these people. How, I was still... unsure. But I knew that whatever this weird feeling was, it didn't feel <em>good,</em> and I definitely hadn't been helping.</p><p><i>I'm sorry,</i> I sent. A lot of humans say that to people who have recently had someone they know die. It’s obviously a stupid thing to say in that context unless you actually had some hand in their death, but I wasn’t apologising because Meridian’s crew were dead. I was apologising for being an asshole about it.</p><p>There was a pause, before Meridian eventually sent <i>Apology accepted. And… thank you for retrieving this data. I have found it very helpful.</i></p><p>I nodded. There were a lot of things going on in my head and I wasn’t sure how to categorize or deal with any of them. I decided that sitting in mild panic and staring at the floor would be my best option.</p><p><i>Aeito,</i> Meridian sent on the feed. Aeito’s drones flicked back up.</p><p>
  <i>Yes?</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Would you allow me to take you back to your base of operations?</i>
</p><p>Aeito looked surprised. <i>Are you not going back to your University?</i></p><p>
  <i>No.</i>
</p><p><i>I see.</i> A pause. <i>Never?</i></p><p><i>I don't know,</i> Meridian said, its voice grating. <i>If I go back they will try to reassign me.</i></p><p>
  <i>I see.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>And I do not want to stay here.</i>
</p><p>Then, in a smaller voice, it added <i>...Nor do I want to be alone.</i></p><p><i>That is understandable,</i> Aeito said gently. <i>Esp_UN?</i></p><p><i>Yes?</i> I replied.</p><p>
  <i>Have you thought about my offer? I would not, of course, need much assistance if we were to be transported by Meridian. You are welcome to come, regardless.</i>
</p><p>It was offering for me to come with it without anything in return. Why would it do that?</p><p><i>I am confused. I don't have anything to offer you,</i> I sent. Aeito's head tilted to the side slightly.</p><p>
  <i>I do not need anything in return. As long as Meridian agrees to take you, you are welcome to come. I know it can be strange, to be suddenly released from the myriad of rules and regulations that had previously clouded you. But this is not an experience you must deal with in isolation.</i>
</p><p>Oh. That made me feel weird. Not bad weird, though. I considered it - yes, actually put thought into my future, I know, shocking. I could feel the weight of Meridian in my feed, slightly withdrawn now due to its emotional breakdown. Or maybe due to my emotional breakdown? I’m not even sure that I’d had an emotional breakdown. Regardless, it was slightly more distant than before, and it gave me a strange kind of determination to change that. Also, I honestly could not think of anything I actually wanted to do with my newfound free will. I was fairly certain that it would take me a substantial period of time to work that out, and as far as I could tell I could choose to do it alone or with… other people who were in comparable positions.</p><p><i>Yeah, I’ll come with you,</i> I said eventually, trying to keep my voice casual. <i>I don’t have anything better to do.</i></p><p>For some reason, that seemed to make Aeito happy. I did have one question, though, which I asked out loud:</p><p>“Where are we going, exactly?”</p><p>“I am from a moon called Epsilon-327,” Aeito explained. “It orbits a fairly inconsequential Corporation Rim planet, but is owned by a non-corporate polity called Ryntal. It is quite small, and holds nothing of value - Ryntal has not developed anything on the moon other than a dock - so it mostly gets ignored. However, it has a population that largely consists of rogue bots and constructs, and even the occasional human.”</p><p>I frowned. “That doesn’t sound real.”</p><p>Aeito nodded. “On a technicality, it is not. Ryntal has the moon listed as uninhabitable, and because it is so undesirable, none of the nearby corporations have an interest in trying to buy it off them. Nobody knows about the bot population other than the humans that work at the dock."</p><p><i>It is beneficial to own portions of land in the Corporation Rim, even if they aren’t used for anything,</i> Meridian supplied. <i>A lot of companies on the outskirts of the Rim have similar setups, as well as some other non-corporate polities - it is fairly common. Usually, they only set up an office, just to have a presence in the area. I had never heard of them being inhabited by rogue bot populations.</i></p><p>“There are bots and constructs that live there, as well as quite a few that use it as a home base for their work, like I do,” Aeito said. “In my experience, it is a good place to reside while one works out what they would like to do with their time.”</p><p>“That sounds...good,” I said softly.</p><p><i>May I have the coordinates?</i> Meridian asked, and a few moments later, we were in transit.</p><p>After a while, my secondary mission clock ticked to zero, and my governor module did not fry my brain. Back on the station, my extraction team would sigh and quietly disembark back to company headquarters. My feed address would be removed from the list of active units, and a message would be sent to the client informing them that unfortunately, the job could not be completed. A few higher-ups would be slightly annoyed that they’d lost a profit opportunity, and see if they could arrange for my body to be found and recycled. Maybe they’d even look into suing the station, or Haelical, for damage to their property.</p><p>Whatever they did, I didn’t care. According to them, I didn’t exist anymore.</p><p>And that was fine by me.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hello! Thank you for reading!<br/>This is the first fic that I have actually finished, or even seriously put effort into. I will admit: I did not expect it to turn out to be over 12,000 words. But here we are. whoops.<br/>Big thank you to lunaTactics for betaing (and also for holding my hand through this entire fic process because I am a Noob)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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